[Xayn]

I had the impression that the story had been in your head before you came across that 1000-words-contest, and that you decided to make use of it for it. unfortunately it is way too much crammed into such little space.
basically I agree with all that is written in KATS' first paragraph.
for a 1000 words the elysium passage at the beginning is way too long and elaborate. thereby you unfortunately berieved yourself of some 150+ words' space you may have better used for explaining a little about the mother.
another thing is that I didn't quite get the part about her father. didn't she wait till he drank enough to fall asleep? why should he have expected her to try something like that, and thus felt urged to "fake"? and if it was just a random little bit of abuse from him again, don't you think that a bottle over the head is a bit harsh even for a guy like him? (not to mention the fact that a true alcoholic probably wouldn't use a bottle with still enough of its booze in to soak her clothes with it.)
and his collapsing right the moment afterwards was more of a coincidence than I'd be willing to accept. just like the fact, btw, that her mother was standing at that window right then. how comes? can she read her daughter's mind?
not sure what genre you'd consider it to be.
personally, that too-short version felt like horror to me.
I think however, that if you would rewrite it with no word-limit whatsoever on your mind, and in doing so concentrated more on the elysium aspects of it, the story might move a bit closer to being "dark fantasy" (I'm not the guy having to label everything, despite of what I just wrote here). I'm pretty sure that I'd like a longer version of your story way better than the current.

[Erebus]

Thanks, Xayn, I always appreciate feedback like this. I guess the short answer to the points and queries which you raise are that the story is first and foremost, fiction. One should never confuse events that may readily occur in the real world with those that may occur in a piece of fiction. (Television is a good example of that!)

However, I understand where you're coming from and totally agree with your observation about the story being a little crammed. Indeed, it was a short story that I had for some time, and, after being savaged for it being overly long - something which regular submitting writers are always told, BTW! - I did a rewrite to fit into the contest parameters. Nevertheless, I was happy with the final result, in spite of its limitations, but have since gone on to develop the character of Cassandra into my second book of The Erebus Equilibrium, which comes out in softcover this month.

The underlying theme of the story is really based on the unexpected actions of all the characters, though of course, not all readers would interpret such in the same way. Which, I'm happy to say, is why we all have different likes and dislikes! http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

Thanks for taking the time to post your comments - they're always welcome, good or bad!

regards,

Neil www.wn.com.au/clubclad/erebus/ (http://www.wn.com.au/clubclad/erebus/)